Purchasing New Laptop

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I am purchasing a new laptop for my daughter to begin college in the fall.
I've been given the option from my employer to buy a new Dell from them that
has Vista Basic - along with Office 2007. What's the difference between
Vista Basic and Vista Premium?
 
Comparision chart:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/default.mspx
Most colleges sell software at significant discounts. Also many colleges
use a "Domain" or Enterprise type IT setup. If that's the case then the
notebook will need Business or Ultimate to be able to join a domain.
I'd check with the school for their requirements and if she can purchase
software from the school. If so, get Vista basic and then upgrade to the
higher tier products once she gets to school and get purchase it for much
less.
 
You need Vista Ultimate, Vista Business or Vista Enterprise to connect to a
domain, the likely scenario at a college. I suggest you check with the
institute of higher learning to find their requirements on this matter.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
RH said:
I am purchasing a new laptop for my daughter to begin college in the fall.
I've been given the option from my employer to buy a new Dell from them that
has Vista Basic - along with Office 2007. What's the difference between
Vista Basic and Vista Premium?
Click to expand...

Vista Basic is not worth you time. Go for Premium. Basic is really what it
says - BASIC. Also make sure the laptop you want to buy has enough juice to
handle Vista. You want at least 1GB RAM and at least 128MB of graphics
memory - not shared. Best advice is to carefully read over the program's
hardware requirements before letting yourself be talking into buying
something that will turn out to be completely inadequate.
 
RH said:
I am purchasing a new laptop for my daughter to begin college in the fall.
I've been given the option from my employer to buy a new Dell from them
that
has Vista Basic - along with Office 2007. What's the difference between
Vista Basic and Vista Premium?
Click to expand...


One thing to watch out for... regardless of the differences between Basic
and Home Premium, is that every PC I've seen thus far that is sold with
Basic comes with 512MB RAM. This is generally considered to be underpowered,
even for Vista Basic. I think most folks here would agree that 1GB RAM is
the acceptable minimum for running any flavor of Vista. I'm not saying you
shouldn't buy the Dell from your employer, but you should be prepared to
shell out some extra cash to bring the RAM up to 1GB if the laptop comes
with only 512MB RAM.

Lang
 
If you're buying laptops from Dell save yourself some grief and just go
XP:

http://news.com.com/Dell+brings+back+XP+on+home+systems/2100-1046_3-
6177619.html

I just got Vista Basic on a laptop because it was on fire sale for $300,
Acer 3680, new, Celeron M 430, 512 M RAM.

What they advertise as being on Home and Home Premium is not entirely
true.

For example, Remote Access, Tablet PC and Windows Mobility center is in
Basic. Not that any of these, but its the same as in Ultimate.

Basic has good wifi support. I haven't tried direct cabling yet.

There is a simplified version of Backup that cannot be scheduled but does
the job very well. You can easily get an Open Source alternative for
this as well as stuff not included, but was available in XP Home: Fax,
DVD burner and HD DVD editors. Basic comes with XP Home level Movie
Maker. Acer threw in their version of a backup, and I use that, it makes
bit images too.

Basic has the same kernel as the big versions, but without the bell and
whistles that also needs more horsepower to run, such as Aero.

Now, the other 'features' I don't have I wouldn't even use since 3rd
party work better, e.g. why get BitLocker? I use truecrypt. Why use
Defender? I use Spybot. Why use mediaplayer? I use gmplayer etc., all
freeware.

I have mine configured with the Window Classic Interface, so it looks and
works nearly identical to my XP box, and it works with 512M. In the end,
I got it up to 1G, and its sings better.
 
For students I'd suggest looking at tablet PCs. For taking notes they are
wonderful and there are many student tools for tablets.
 
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